Tom Conner

Articles by TOM PHILPOTT

House-Senate conferees have agreed to the more modest House-passed plan for raising drug co-payments on military family members and retirees who fill prescriptions at TRICARE retail outlets or through mail order.
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House-Senate conferees have agreed to the more modest House-passed plan for raising drug co-payments on military family members and retirees who fill prescriptions at Tricare retail outlets or through mail order. READ MORE

Base grocery and department stores provide military members, retirees and their families with shopping discounts worth $4.5 billion annually. But that’s just a fraction of the overall value these stores deliver to the military and the nation, a new study from American Logistics Association (ALA) argues in response to fresh threats on the shopping benefit. READ MORE

The military’s managed-care option — Tricare Prime — will be ended Oct. 1 for retirees, their family members and for military survivors who reside more than 40 miles from a military treatment facility or from a base closure site, Tricare Management Activity announced Wednesday. READ MORE

Unbending politicians who hold defense budgets hostage while refusing to cut a deal to address the nation’s debt crisis are putting at risk the readiness of America’s armed forces, the Joint Chiefs warned Monday in “28-star” letter to the House and Senate armed services committees. READ MORE

This time last year the Air Force unveiled a plan to cut Air National Guard strength by 5100 members along with more than 200 Guard aircraft, touting this as a reasonable efficiency, in part because Guard squadrons cost more to operate than active duty squadrons. READ MORE

Lt. Cmdr. Jack Townsend, a Navy Reserve retiree in Richmond, Va., first became aware a decade ago that he wasn’t considered a military “veteran” under federal law. It’s been bothering him ever since.
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Defense Department civilian and military leaders gave full details this week of the readiness crisis unfolding across America’s armed forces, and got back not a whit of reassurance from Congress that relief is on the way. READ MORE

Most of 800,000 Department of Defense civilian employees will see their workweeks shortened and their pay cut by 20 percent from late April through September, if Congress and the president, as now expected, fail to stop $46 billion in defense budget cuts set to take effect March 1. READ MORE

The Obama administration pared back its plan to develop a single, integrated, electronic health- record system for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs due to shrinking defense budgets and rising costs. READ MORE